


little beast

by nereid



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: AU future-set vamp!elena, vamp!damon, next-doppelganger shenanigansAnd of course, lest we forget - Damon says "Yes" to what Elena asks for, and it's only because she hangs up on time, before he gets the chance to say "I never could say no to you" which would not be the whole truth, but it is a statement of sentiment and intent, which is worse.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. the bell rings, the dog growls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon; or how a wannabe lover answers a phone call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from richard siken

A story needs to start somewhere, so let us say this story needs three protagonists now. It is important for all them to be protagonists, with all this entails - growth, characterization, the story caring about them. (The story pretends not to play favorites - which, please, is anyone going to be fooled by that? Luckily the story's favorites also rotate occasionally, slightly, though not in a way that might traditionally considered fair and equal, but still, maybe all this means nothing horrible will ever happen to any of them. (Were you fooled by this, again? Really? After being warned mere seconds ago about getting fooled? The story cares about its telling, if it cares about anything. Snap into focus, sharpen your eyes and ears, and pay some amount of attention, though it doesn't have to be all of it. Let this story slide through the cracks left by others before it, the tropes and twists we've all been witness to since Gilgamesh and The Iliad and Bhagavad Gita. After all, you've heard this story before, because all stories are the same.))

(It is written in Bhagavad Gita - all the scriptures lead to me.)

Something horrible has happened.

Damon knows this because Elena is calling him. Elena's last booty call to him was twenty or so years ago, and the term 'booty call' had gone out of fashion long before that. Her last "Damon, I need you" call was not much after that, but those never go out of fashion; it seemed only natural at the time, he even thought there were on the verge of a new beginning of their rollercoaster of a relationship, but it wasn't that. So, Damon doesn't like to think much of it if it's not in service of background thoughts instead of music to accompany him being drunk, or if it's not Sunday and he's doing the dishes, or whatever, he says he doesn't like to think about it and stop pushing the subject. He went, he helped her, not worth spending more thoughts on, and definitely not worth remembering that she wore her hair in a straight bob paired with silver earrings, or that she seemed thinner than in his mind.

But Damon's not been drinking, which is unusual, and it's Tuesday, which is as perfectly usual as the other six days of the week, and she still has the same phone number as last time, which is perhaps not unusual, but it makes it so that when he's just about to take a seat at the bar and order a bourbon (if it ain't broke, right) and his phone rings and he takes it out of his front leather jacket pocket (even if you haven't learned anything from within the last set of parentheses, Damon obviously has) he knows for a fact that it is Elena Gilbert calling him. He wants to pick up because this might be serious. He also wants to not pick up to see if she would call a second time, and he wants to count his victories because this means the games have started already even if he wasn't notified of it. He'll pick up. He won't. He'll do it after three rings. One ring. He picks up. Now he has to say something.

"Yes?" (Smooth, loverboy, smooth.)

"Damon, I need your help,"

Oh, well, there you go.

The story skips over the following phone conversation. It allows Damon to be gentler than he is, if no one is listening in. The story can tell exactly what has gone on in the conversation, in more detail than anyone cares for. But, consider: everyone knows that part. Damon jokes to cover up discomfort, check. Elena does not care for that, but allows it to play out to some degree because it keeps Damon from saying things that reside in and beneath his discomfort. Double check. Elena crosses and uncrosses her legs, but Damon does not see that. Damon bites his lower lip after he thinks he's joked enough, but Elena does not see that. And of course, lest we forget - Damon says "Yes" to what Elena asks for, and it's only because she hangs up on time, before he gets the chance to say "I never could say no to you" which would not be the whole truth, but it is a statement of sentiment and intent, which is worse.


	2. the place they could almost slip right into

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elena; or how a Doppelganger wishes she was fucking seventeen again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from richard siken

A reader might anticipate various possible second chapters based on what could be found in chapter one. There is the possibility of continuing along with what Damon is doing, surely a path that offers itself to much mischief and ludicrousness, as only an ancient vampire perpetually in love with a woman with the same young face can offer. There is of course, the possibility of venturing into the narrative unknown and uncovering the shape and form of the third, thus far unnamed protagonist.

And then there is Elena.

(This setup, meaning of course, the story now zooms in on Elena. The story has tricks up its sleeves, or at least let's believe the story has sleeves and tricks up them, and could probably play with some new ones, spice the whole endeavour up, but storytelling is as storytelling does: meaning, if it ain't broke, don't fix it; meaning: can you really teach an old dog new tricks?)

And calling Damon, now there's a storytelling endeavour, and there are so many aspects of it Elena detests, detests meaning that she feels her pulse quicken and her breath shorten even though she's not jogging, and she feels like she's seventeen again, but only seventeen fits her differently now, she sees through the cracks of it, and yes, if she squints, she can make-believe that the cracks are not there or that they are a part of the image and have always been a part of the image, but make-believe is make-believe, and it is not anything else. It was nice being seventeen, Elena has the luxury of thinking, now when she is not seventeen anymore. It seems like pom-poms and prom-nights now. She knows it wasn't, or at least wasn't just that, but she's more alone now than she was alone then, and being alone skews everyone's perspective, don't blame Elena, she tries her best. (Don't we all, though?)

Elena bites into the closest part of her turtleneck, a nervous habit, part-vampire, part-teenage-disaster, that she never quite manages to outgrow. This whole sitting on the floor business, also quite teenage-disaster-y, but it seems fitting, she is about to put out a distress call into the remnants of her teenage-disaster past. _That's not you anymore_ , she reminds herself, calmly, while sitting on the floor, biting into her turtleneck, and this is fucking ridiculous. It would be even more ridiculous if she knew the number by heart, but she scrolls down to D in her contacts list before she's able to even contemplate trying to dial using muscle memory.

You know already about the phonecall, or at least you know parts of it. Elena hangs up when Damon promises to help, thankful he's not said anything else, because this is a friendly request for assisstance, no more no less, and if he makes it to be more than that, well, it's not Elena making it anything, is she. (Is she?)

Well, she does not mean to, anyway, and intent has gotta count for something.

She texts Damon the address of her apartment, it's a relatively new place and she's pretty sure no one else from her old-Mystic-Falls people knows it. It's nice, after all these years, to have something of her own. A job, a career even, or more realistically, the makings of a career she knows will have to be put to an end to soon enough, some people she sees fairly regularly that don't use the term Doppelganger in regular conversation.

Or at least it was nice, anyway, before there was a Petrova body in her beige-painted bedroom.


	3. the taste of grave in the mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diane, or how another doppelganger becomes a vampire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from richard siken

Let's all take a collective deep breath now and pull back from that ending of the second chapter. A casual glance of any reader will allow them to read tags such as _Original Petrova Character(s)_ or even additional descriptions such as _next-doppelganger-shenanigans_. Talk about a plot twist ruined. But this is not about plot twists, no, at least not in a traditional scenes, more of a re-telling, a re-furbishing. Equal parts nightmare and wishful thinking, if only it was easy to tell who it came from.

So let us meet our third remaining protagonist. Ready or not - well, you know how that one goes? 

She remembers the cold, and then the dark, and then nothing, and coming from nothing, it's easy to be taken aback by this non-nothingness that she doesn't quite recognize as of yet - it's a fucking beige painted bedroom. She feels like she'll be swallowed by the offensive beigeness of it all, and she doesn't know immediately how she ended up in this room, belonging probably to someone intensely and provocatively boring, and whatever people that Diane hangs out with are, they're 100% certifiably not boring. She moves to get her phone, whatever's going on does not scream of violence or rape, thanks #metoo - except - well - the flashes of memory.

Some things were clear to her as they occured, but not many of them, and it's even worse remembering them now, like a dream twice removed and hurting twice as much for it. 

Someone was after her and Elena. Elena, the girl who looked exactly like her, except she has a boring bob haircut. She met her while they were getting coffee in the same coffee shop. She doesn't know why someone was after them. Or who, or even if they were after both or only one of them. She knows Elena seemed angry. Or scared. Or something, anyway. She's known Elena for like three seconds, excuse her if she couldn't exactly read her mind.

And then, then she remembers Elena's fingers reaching Diane's bare shoulders and tickling slightly, even while she knows that this spot right here, where Elena's skin tickles hers, this is where Diane's pink shirt was before it got torn, and she remembers Elena's gentle hands and her sharp fangs, and she didn't think people had fangs like this. She remembers Elena's fingers tracing her jawline, Elena whispering _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ , non-stop litany, all over again, circles and repetitions, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_. 

She remembers. Elena kissing her hand and proceeding to bite into her own wrist. Elena pushing her wrist into her mouth.

_I'm sorry_

Sounds of a neck snapping.

With more certainty than seems plausible, she remembers Elena not letting go of her hands.


End file.
